ARTISTES

ESTHER FERRER

Works Bibliography Biography Exhibitions Press Download
Esther Ferrer
Born in 1937 in San Sebastian, Spain.
Lives and works in Paris, France.
 
Esther Ferrer is chiefly know for her performances, her main form of expression, alone or in the group Zaj created by Juan Hidalgo, Walter Marchetti and Ramon Barce, from 1967 until its dissolution in 1996.
 
Her work has always been more orientated towards art/action, an ephemeral practice, rather than towards art/production. That was how she founded with J. A. Sistiaga, in the Spain of the early sixties, the first “Atelier de libre
expression” (Free expression workshop).
 
From the seventies onward, she has devoted part of her activity to the visual arts: worked-over photographs, objects, models, installations and paintings based on the series of prime numbers. Her work is inscribed within a very specific minimalism that could be defined as the “rigor of the absurd”. She says, but only when asked, that every performance is the “art of space, time and presence”.
 
She represented Spain in the Venice Biennale in 1999, and was awarded three prizes in Spain: the Premio Nacional de Artes Plásticas in 2008 (National Prize for Visual Arts), the Premio Gure Artea in 2012 (Basque country) and in 2014, the Premio MAV - Mujeres en las Artes Visuales (Women in the Visual Arts).
 
Recently, two retrospectives were shown successively in France: in the Frac Bretagne in Rennes, from January through April, 2013 Le chemin se fait en marchant / face A and in the Mac/Val in Vitry-sur-Seine from February through July, 2014 Face B. Image / Autoportrait.
Following those two exhibitions, a monographic work, the first in French (and in English), retracing her performances and her installations, was published jointly with the Frac Bretagne and the Mac/Val.
 
Recent solo exhibitions (selected) :
 
2014
- Structures et projets spatiaux, galerie Lara Vincy, Paris.
- Face B. Image / Autoportrait, MacVal Musée d’art contemporain du Val de Marne, Vitry-sur-Seine, France.
2013
- Le chemin se fait en marchant / face A, Frac Bretagne, Rennes, France.
2012
- Esther Ferrer : maquetas, galeria Angels, Barcelona, Spain.
- Esther Ferrer en cuatro movimientos
, CGAC, Centro Gallego de Arte Contemporáneo, Saint-Jacques-de-Compostela, Spain.
- Esther Ferrer en cuatro movimientos, Es Baluard, Museo de Arte Moderno Contemporáneo de Palma, Palma de Mallorque, Spain.
2011
- Esther Ferrer en cuatro movimientos, Artium, Museo de Arte Contemporáneo, Vitoria-Gasteiz, Spain.
2010
- El poema de los numeros primos, galeria Altxerri, San Sebastian, Spain.
2009
- La part des anges, installation, Casals Solleric, Palma de Mallorca, Spain.
- Arco, stand El País, Madrid, Spain.
- Dans le cadre de l’art (3), galerie Lara Vincy, Paris.
2008
- Al ritmo del tiempo, galeria Angels, Barcelona, Spain.
- En el marco de l’arte (2), galeria Trinta, Saint-Jacques-de-Compostela, Spain.
2007
- Autoportrait dans l’espace, Institut Cervantes, Toulouse, France.
- Al ritmo del tiempo, Museo National de Belas Artes, Institut Cervantes, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
2006
- Al ritmo del tiempo, Institut Cervantes, Rome, Italy.
- Al ritmo del tiempo, Institut Cervantes, Sofia, Bulgaria.
- Al ritmo del tiempo, Institut Cervantes, Prague, Czech Republic.
2005
- Al ritmo del tiempo, Koldo Mitxelena Kulturenea, San Sebastian, Spain.
2003
- Duero Aguas discursivas, Fundación Rey Alfonso Henriquez, Toro, Spain.
2002
- Le poème des nombres premiers, galerie Lara Vincy, Paris.
- Parcourir un carré, galerie Labirynt 2 BWA, Lublin, Poland.
2001
- Museum of Contemporary Art, Roskilde, Denmark.
2000
- Sur la photo, galerie J. & J. Donguy, Paris.
- Installation géométrique, galerie Arsenal, Bialystok, Poland.
- Lieu Commun, Installation : Inter-Vention, Institut Français, Bremen, Germany.